Bourbon News

Larceny Bourbon Absconds With Your Taste Buds

WhiskyCritic had a chance to sample some of Heaven Hill’s Larceny, a wheated bourbon with an interesting back story that left some good lingering memories on our taste buds as well.

Larceny is bottled at 46% alcohol by volume [92 proof] and as a wheated bourbon [using wheat as the secondary grain, rather than rye], it is smoother than your traditional rye-enhanced bourbon. In fact, Larceny went down so smoothly in WC’s tastings that it very nearly entered that “dangerous” category usually reserved for the fruity cocktails [think lemon drops and cosmos] where the alcohol tends to sneak up on you in your blood stream. WC could have had six or seven samples of Larceny and probably thought we had three or four – you know how it goes with that sort of thing.

Larceny was not only smooth in texture but gave off notes of sweetness and to our discerning nasal membranes, some notes that distinctly resembled doughnuts. Think if they made a bourbon that was the alcohol equivalent to your favorite maple bar or malasada – this is that bourbon. It does not overwhelm you with the sweetness elements but provides the same satisfaction. So Larceny was smooth going down – no feistiness – and yet packed the same punch as some of your more intense rye bourbon offerings. It is almost the best of both worlds.

Better yet is the back story, where the name Larceny is said to originate from the back-in-the-day story that the bourbon was created by a former federal bonded Treasury agent who “liberated” and hoarded some of the best barrels of bourbon from distilleries he was supposed to be inspecting. Whether it is true or not, it is a good story and lends to the mystique of the product.

Overall, Larceny is a definite winner – and at approximately $25 per bottle to boot – and WC awards it a 91 out of 100 on our WC scale of good bourbon-ness.